They exchange numbers and part ways.

Aoi figures Damian will think she is being quirky by ignoring his texts, or by replying with the same copy-pasted answer every time: Later, I can’t now.

She takes another turn at a street-corner. It’s dark. The sun has disappeared.

The moon is gone, too.

When she arrives before her home’s porch, angered voices cause Aoi to pause. Her parents are fighting again. She doubts they realize that she is aware of this. They tend to go at it whenever the young woman is gone, or asleep—or at least, asleep, in their minds.

It was the same last night, too. Aoi was huddled up in her blankets. Her wrist was hurting because she had wanted to help her mother do the dishes.

Perhaps, her parents had assumed the sound of the television would be enough to censor their words. Aoi still heard them, though.

“What are we going to do?”

“We can’t take another job.”

“How much debt is left? Do you think we can pay it off in time?”

“This is all your fault! If only you’d taken better care of her when she was younger, she wouldn’t have developed this— This sick, horrible—”

“We don’t know what caused it—nobody does—stop blaming me!”

What if it was Aoi’s own fault? Aoi had wondered. What if she had eaten a tad too much candy back when she was a child?

Drank too much strawberry milk?

Went to bed late for a whole year?

Yes, the feeling of not knowing if she could have prevented her current predicament unsettled her greatly. Of course, Aoi did her best to focus on the present, the future, and everything in between that, but the lingering thought of What-if-I-make-everything-worse-for-myself-accidentally-without-even-realizing-it always came back to haunt her no matter what she did.

Aoi blamed it on science—or rather, the fact that science wasn’t quite there yet. It was a fear familiar to many: the unknown. That familiarity, however, did nothing to comfort her. And it still does not. It won’t—not until modern medicine finds a cure. Or better explanations for her woes.

It has been five minutes. As Aoi stands before her house’s wooden entrance, her mother carries on. Continues to yell accusations at her father, whilst her father yells accusations her mother.

Aoi’s arms tense by her sides. Her fingers curl into fists. The flowers in her family’s garden have yet to bloom again. She tells herself it is normal. It isn’t Summer. She ignores her gut feeling, that tells her they haven’t been taking care of those plants properly, because of all the visits to the hospital Aoi has gone through lately.

Her hand lingers against the door-knob. Aoi considers unlocking it, or touching it and rattling silver to make the screams stop, like a hoard of crows chased out of a tall, oak tree.

She takes a deep breath.

She thinks back to Damian’s offer.

He truly does want her to go on a road trip with him. The prospect terrifies Aoi, just as much as it intrigues her.

She has not left her neighborhood in ten years. What little memory she has of the holidays her parent’s took her on do nothing to satisfy her adventurous streak, which Damian has managed to somehow revive, after all these moments that had passed in which Aoi had convinced herself she was destined to die in the same house as the one she’d been born in.

The air cools.

It starts to rain.

Aoi shivers. Her parents’ voices are hoarse now. She hugs her sides then huffs. Little clouds of fog come to temper with the air before her lips. Aoi repeats the words she wants to tell them over again in her head. Then, she nudges the door open, and says, “I’m home!”

Her parents freeze. They do not look as disheveled as Aoi assumed they would. Her father is a bit red in the face, her mother in the eyes, but for all she knows, they could have been cutting onions, and nothing more.

The two greet her as if nothing is amiss. Aoi pretends she believes that. She swallows her request to go on a road trip with a stranger—after all, she thinks, she is eighteen, she can do whatever she wants, no matter how preposterous, should she wish it.

But whether or not it is a good idea to act on her yearning, is another story.

They eat dinner. Aoi’s father takes out a plate that he poses out, flat before his daughter in silence. Aoi does not know why he keeps on doing that—insists on it, always. Supposedly, the man wants to make her feel more involved, even though she is still sipping on a bottle of thick, fruit flavored liquid, and not eating their food; the meal her mother cooked, that Aoi wishes she could take a least a tiny bite of.

Aoi finishes first, as always.

She does not like the sight of the plate. It reminds her of what she cannot have.

They do the dishes. Aoi’s wrist aches by the end of it. When her mother asks if she is fine, Aoi merely says, “Yes,” before she exits the kitchen and tries to convince her brain that she has eaten enough. That she is not hungry for a proper meal. Something that she can chew on, like meat.

Pasta. Carrots. Fish. Cake. Potatoes. Eggs. Salad. Bacon. Pie. Oranges. Fruit. The meal Damian had brought her today— No.

No. No, she thinks. Stop.

Stop it.

Those times are over. Stop.

I am not hungry.

I am okay.

That night, the young woman goes to bed earlier than usual. She figures it will straighten up her mind, and keep her from sending a message that is not a copy-paste, as she downs her pills in one go, then lets her back fall against the mattress.

Aoi shuts her eyes.

The rain stops.

As the rooftop above her falls silent, she picks up her alarm clock to check the time. It’s been three hours. A sigh escapes her lips. Amid the darkness, she rises to her feet, walks up to her desk, then feels around the top of it, for her mobile phone.

On it, Aoi sends a single message that is not a copy-paste clone of every single other one she has given Damian so far.

[03:21] Aoi: I’ll come.

She does not check for answers.

She goes back to bed.

This time, sleep takes her with ease.